Directors

Who we are

Consultancy Staff

Administration Staff

Follow us on Twitter

About Us

Where we come from

Where we are going

Recent Key Projects

Directors

td { font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; text-align: justify; }

	RICHARD HESS Richard Hess is the founder and Chairman of the Imani Development Group with over 35 years experience working in Eastern and Southern Africa in economic development issues and having started Imani Development in 1982 in Zimbabwe. Richard is a recognized leading specialist in regional economic integration issues in Eastern and Southern Africa and the Indian Ocean region and in trade policy. He has consulted extensively for COMESA, EAC, IOC and SADC Secretariats for more than 20 years as well as for many of the main international development agencies and donors, including DFID, the EC, USAID, World Bank, Commonwealth Secretariat and the UN. He is a highly experienced project manager, having previously directed a number of large donor-funded projects in the ACP region, including the DfID-funded Southern Africa Regional Trade Facilitation Programme for six years, and the EC-funded Cross-Border Initiative (CBI) for intra-regional trade, investment and payments in East and Southern Africa which ran for eight years. Under the CBI, Richard was responsible for organising several ministerial meetings and technical conferences. He has twice been engaged by the Global Coalition for Africa as an advisor to the Ministers on the subject of rationalization of regional integration institutions in Africa and was a member of special task force set up by the WTO to review the work of the Integrated Framework for LDCs. In 2003 Richard moved from Zimbabwe to South Africa and he now shares his time between the Cape Town and Oban (UK) offices.
	KEITH ATKINSON Keith Atkinson is a Director of Imani Development , based in Perth and responsible for our office in Australia. He has been working in developing countries across Africa, Asia and the Pacific for the past 25 years. Keith has broad sectoral experience including Economic Development (regional economic integration, industrial and enterprise development, private sector development, macro-economics), Pro-poor Trade, Education, Strategic Planning, Agribusiness and Capacity Building. He leads the Monitoring and Evaluation thematic area at Imani, and has undertaken numerous programme and project evaluations in Africa and Asia. He is fully versed in Project Cycle Management methodology and EDF procedures. Keith has also worked with a significant number of regional integration organisations including, SAARC, ASEAN, COMESA, SADC, EAC and IOC.
	PROFESSOR GAVIN MAASDORP Professor Maasdorp is one of South Africa's leading economists in the fields of transport and trade. Before joining the Imani group full time in 1998, he was Director of the Economic Research Unit at the University of Natal. He has worked as a consultant in the Southern African region for over 40 years in the fields of economic policy, transport, trade and regional integration, and more recently in the economic impacts of infrastructure projects as part of the environmental impact report process. He has led numerous projects for organisations such as the World Bank, SADC, Comesa, DBSA and the Governments of Swaziland, Lesotho, and Trinidad and Tobago in the areas of trade and regional integration, transport policy and corridors, and project appraisal. His projects have been located throughout Southern and Eastern Africa as well as the Caribbean and Abu Dhabi.
	VEEPIN BHOWON Veepin Bhowon joined Imani Mauritius in 1994. He is a Director of Imani Development and Projects Director responsible for managing projects at the Cape Town Office. Veepin holds an MSc. degree in Economics from the University of Aix-Marseille III and an MPhil in Economics of tourism from the same institution. In 1998 he obtained an MBA degree with specialisation in Marketing at the University of Mauritius and he also possesses a diploma in international trade law. As a senior trade expert, he has more than fifteen years of experience in economic cooperation issues in the COMESA, EAC, Indian Ocean Commission and the SADC regions. He has worked on a wide number of donor-funded projects especially from the EC. Mr Bhowon has undertaken a number of studies for the above regional organisations in the areas of private sector development, intra-regional trade, agriculture, economics, customs tariffs, export promotion and also marketing. He is well versed in the economic problems of the Indian Ocean and Eastern and Southern African countries.
	JOHN MCGRATH Mr McGrath is a Director of Imani Development responsible for Imani's office in Malawi. Having joined the group in 1996, John has over twenty years experience in trade, private sector development and project management in Africa. He has been involved in a wide range of private and public sector projects across East and Southern Africa. John has been actively involved in public-private dialogue processes being advisor to the Malawi Trade Policy National Working Group and is part of the secretariat for the National Action Group (NAG) Forum, a senior level group dealing with all the development issues that impact private sector in Malawi. He has extensive experience in monitoring and evaluation having worked on the involvement of the private sector in the SADC EPA negotiations, EC's trade policy support programme in Kenya, and other NSAs in the SADC EPA process. John has been involved, as a Malawi Government Ministerial Advisor, in the preparations of the Seattle, Doha, Cancun and Hong Kong WTO Ministerial meetings. He has also supported the Zambian Government to integrate their trade initiatives, namely, Aid for Trade, the Integrated Framework (IF), Joint Integrated Trade Assistance Programme (JITAP) and their Value Chain analysis into the Private Sector Development programme. This also involved assisting the Zambian Business Forum to engage in the mainstreaming of trade and trade related issues into the Zambian economy through their Trade Expansion Working Group (TEWG). John has undertaken various private sector research projects for the World Bank, Commonwealth, etc covering the full project management cycle: conceptualisation, design, budgeting, planning, formulation, implementation, monitoring & control, closure as well as evaluation.
	MURDOCH GATWARD Murdoch Gatward is the Managing Director of Imani Development's office in the UK and CEO of the Imani Development Foundation. Following an Electrical and Agricultural Engineering training, Murdoch worked in industry in the UK before moving to Southern Sudan to manage a development project. This led to over 27 years of development experience in Eastern and Southern Africa including 7 years working in Tanzania, a year in South Africa and 2 years in Malawi. He is a specialist in Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) development (including social enterprise development) and Business Development Services including Organisational Development, he is also a registered social auditor. Murdoch has worked as Programme Manager Africa for Traidcraft Exchange where he gained extensive experience of trade facilitation work, specifically related to SME Development and Fair Trade as part of the poverty eradication process. Murdoch also has considerable experience in, and is qualified to undertake social audit work, both with the private and community sectors. He has worked on projects for the Argyll and Bute Council in Scotland in the area of social enterprise and its link to job creation, and for the Scottish Government's International Department. Murdoch also managed the producer support and development programme for Cafédirect tea producers in Rwanda, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, which includes accessing new markets for the tea producers, implementing current EU standards and codes and general business support. Murdoch is a Fellow of the Chartered Management Institute and has an MA in management studies.
	PROFESSOR ELIAS LINKS Dr Elias Links, a Director of Imani Development South Africa has so far spent time in three major areas of involvement, namely, Academia, Diplomacy and the Corporate world. Elias is a trained economist and taught economics at both undergraduate and graduate level in South Africa. He also distinguished himself as a senior diplomat as Ambassador in the South African Foreign Service. In this capacity he has done work in a number of countries and added negotiations as a part of his skill set. South Africa's membership of multilateral financial institutions were all being renegotiated during the early part of the nineties and Elias played a strategic and leading role in most of these negotiations. Chief among these were the re-entry into the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, the African Development Bank and the African Caribbean and Pacific Group of Countries. But primary amongst these negotiations were those with the European Union in the mid nineties - the Trade, Development and Cooperation Agreement (TDCA). Others included the Wines and Spirits Agreement, the Science and Technology Agreement and the membership of the Lomé Convention, now the Cotonou Agreement. Dr Links was chief negotiator for these Agreements with the EU. Since retiring from public service, Elias continued to play a role in the trade and economic arena, especially at the academic institutions and continues to publish and lecture on international trade issues. He is also a strategic resource for Nepad in the area of Intra-Africa trade.He is director of a number of companies but is also very involved in the community projects of both National and Provincial government. The Minister of Arts and Culture re-appointed Elias as Chairperson of the Cape based IZOKO Museums of South Africa for a second term. He also represented the short-term insurance industry on the Council of INSETA and serves as President of the Afrikaans Handels Institute. He is director of a number of South African companies and serves as Chairman of a number of these. He is, amongst others, Chairman of the Board of Directors of AfriSam Ltd., the largest building materials company in Southern Africa.
	RITA CHOTO Rita Choto, Director of Imani Zimbabwe, is a market analyst with nearly 30 years experience in trade development and regional integration work within the Southern and East African regions. Major regional integration projects undertaken have included the Cross-Border Initiative, a project aimed at accelerating implementation of regional trade agreements in Eastern, Southern Africa & the Indian Ocean Rim; and COMESA's project to harmonise customs and trade regulations and statistics. Her trade development work involves primarily export development projects including supply side analysis and market identification through to contact promotion activities. She is also involved in the development of Fair Trade initiatives in Zimbabwe.

	MR JULIUS ETHANG'ATHA Julius Ethang'atha is a director in the opened Imani Development office in Nairobi, Kenya. Julius has been in the Tea Industry for slightly over 33 years, most of which was in the KTDA (Kenya Tea Development Agency), the biggest organization serving small scale tea growers in the world. He retired in 2004 at the level of General Manager sales and marketing after which, as a free lance consultant, he teamed up with Imani Development to imprint Fairtrade in tea in Kenya. A trained teacher and teacher trainer, Julius holds a Diploma in Agricultural Education and Extension from Egerton College and many certificates in among others, HACCP, Food Safety, Third Auditor, BRC (Food), Environmental awareness and Product Traceability. He has been involved in implementation of many projects including HACCP in tea factories. He is an Authority in the area of Risks and Opportunities Analysis, a prelude to Adaptation to Climate Change. Julius is an authority in tea matters especially those to do with Small Scale Farming.
	MR ANDY SIMPSON Andy Simpson, Managing Director, Imani South Africa, Cape Town: Branding and Markets Specialist (ex-Volkswagen UK) - Operational Management of SME and larger organisations; Institutional compliance measures and controls; BDS and enterprise development in commercial and non-commercial sectors; Consumer focused market research; Brand Development ; Marketing and communications; Corporate policy analysis and development ; Strategy development and change management; Programme design and evaluation.
	FRED LWEBUGA-KAGGWA Fred Lwebuga-Kaggwa, Managing Director of Imani Development East Africa, has 20 years experience in Business management and capacity strengthening, his primary areas of expertise are SME development, growth, product development and market entry; Implementation of organizational policies and systems including strategy development and change management, development of strategic and operational plans, and technical and service delivery compliance. He has also worked on implementation of an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) in Uganda. Fred’s experience in the private sector, at management and board level, provides excellent understanding and appreciation of the East African political, economic, social and cultural environment. Fred has an MBA (Finance) from University of Liverpool.